The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream
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''The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a 2001 film based on the play ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...
'' by
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. It was written and directed by
Christine Edzard Christine Edzard (born 15 February 1945)Christine Edzard
IMDb. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
is a studios, the converted docklands warehouse where Edzard directed ''
Little Dorrit ''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, originally published in Serial (literature), serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea pris ...
''. This was the tenth collaboration between Goodwin and Edzard, who is known for her meticulous filmmaking, often based on Victorian English sources. Their other productions include ''
Stories from a Flying Trunk ''Stories from a Flying Trunk'' is a 1979 film based on three stories by Hans Christian Andersen. It was devised, written and directed by Christine Edzard and produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin. The music by Giacchino Rossini was ...
'' (1979), '' The Nightingale'' (1981), '' Biddy'' (1983), ''
Little Dorrit ''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, originally published in Serial (literature), serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea pris ...
'' (1987), '' The Fool'' (1990), ''
As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wil ...
'' (1991), ''
Amahl and the Night Visitors ''Amahl and the Night Visitors'' is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer.Menotti, Gian-Carlo: ''Amahl and the Night Visitors (piano-vocal score)'', G. Schirmer, Inc., 1997. It was commiss ...
'' (1996), ''
The IMAX Nutcracker ''The IMAX Nutcracker'' is a 1997 short Christmas film directed by Christine Edzard based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann. It was produced by Celia Bannerman, Andrew Gellis, Lorne Orleans and Olivier Stockman at Sands F ...
'' (1997) and '' The Good Soldier Schwejk'' (2018). Many of the children who formed the cast, all non-professional actors, came from the North Peckham estate where 10-year old Damilola Taylor was fatally stabbed during production, just a stone's throw from Sands studios."South side story" by Xan Brooks, December 8, 2000.
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Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...
''
This event drew the world's attention to some of the estates of Southwark, their abandonment and lack of government funding and resources, and associated crime levels. However, Sands' film project, which “acquainted a multiracial group of inner-city schoolchildren with Shakespeare” was turned down by the Arts Council for lottery funding, despite the council's stated aims to “support and encourage cultural diversity and social inclusiveness”. The Arts Council's decision was upheld later in the year by its successor the British Film Council who complained that the project was “not sufficiently creative.” The Sands team funded the project from savings, while the film's producer Olivier Stockman pointed out that “
Kenneth Branagh Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh ( ; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. List of award ...
can get £1 million to do Shakespeare but kids from Southwark cannot get anything.” This led to the stalling of the film during post-production. According to Stockman, the Arts Council's decision was made on political, rather than artistic, terms and was affected by the political nature of the film – for example the decision by director Edzard not to recruit the children through an acting agency. Edzard and production co-ordinator Annabel Hands said they preferred to use untrained children with “no preconceptions”. The cast of children learnt new skills and improved their self-esteem, and “not one child dropped out during the six-month shoot.” Edzard explained that these were children who had “potential and curiosity” but “were not being offered anything” and were hence “cut off from reality”. When Stockman began working with Edzard in the late 1970s, she already had the idea for the film. Loving the play, but realising that its childish or ridiculous situations presented difficulties for adult actors, Edzard decided that the only way to make the film work would be to use actors who would not bring cultural baggage inherited from drama school or familiarity with Shakespeare. Hence the decision to use children, who would read the text without adding their own, sometimes misjudged, experience. Filming took around six months during the school year. The studio was only allowed to take the children out for a few hours a day - collecting them in a minibus after lunch and returning them home individually. The classes were often overcrowded so the schools were pleased that some children were taken out of the classroom as it made it more manageable for them. The children were not only performers but were involved in the whole project of making a film - doing clapperboards, preparing the costumes, the sets, the forest, cutting leaves in workshops.


Themes and interpretations

Edzard's approach to ''A Children's Midsummer Night's Dream'' has been described as “finding specifically childlike concerns” in Shakespeare's play, rather than "mobilising it" for older audiences. The casting of children represents “an event unique in Shakespearean cinematic history” but also recaptures the audience's understanding of the playwright's “wonder and invention” as the young cast members appropriate the theme of Shakespeare's original to "match the considerations of their own experience." The age of the actors makes them incompatible with the play's themes of marriage, sexuality and domestic power, creating a
cognitive dissonance In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some ...
in for example the childlike appearance of Titiania (played by Rajouana Zalal), and the complex grammar of her long speech about the miserable weather. This also makes Edzard's project of interest for studies of gender and gender politics, as well as of cultural authority. Producer Oliver Stockman describes how the children are able to play three groups of characters - lovers, fairies and mechanicals - without having to make a complicated effort: "The lovers are young...inexperienced...they talk about love but they haven't done it, they haven't kissed, they're just very excited about it. That's relevant to young children in the same way as it is relevant to the characters in the play. (They) love to play at being fairies, at being magical, at being able to fly, being able to transform themselves...whereas a 20-year old actress may find it difficult. And they are inexperienced ... exactly like the mechanicals...they are not pretending not to understand their lines, they just are. So there's not this double game." ''The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream'' advances the bold, but less obviously social, engagement with “social malfeance and urban ills” which animated Edzard, her husband Richard Goodwin and producer Stockman's earlier film projects ''
Little Dorrit ''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, originally published in Serial (literature), serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea pris ...
'', '' The Fool'' and ''
As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wil ...
''.


Reception

Writing in the ''Literature/ Film Quarterly'' journal, Mark Thornton Burnett describes ''The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream'' as “a wonderful achievement” by director
Christine Edzard Christine Edzard (born 15 February 1945)Christine Edzard
IMDb. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
is a